Get to know the kiddos

And help celebrate their great gains!

There's an easy way to find out how treatment at Children’s TherAplay makes such a difference for children with special needs: meet the kiddos and to discover the gains, both large and small, we're so honored to be a part of every day.

Meet Joan

Physical and occupational therapies to address cerebral palsy

Listen in as kiddo Joan and his family share how physical and occupational therapies at Children’s TherAplay have made a difference in Joan’s life. And learn from Joan’s therapists why hippotherapy is such a game-changer for kiddos with special needs.

Meet Ollie

Physical therapy to address a rare genetic syndrome

Like many of children who receive treatment at Children’s TherAplay, Ollie is living with extensive medical and physical challenges. In his case they spring from a rare and complex genetic disorder, CHARGE syndrome, which results in loss of hearing, sight, and smell; heart defects; low muscle tone; feeding and swallowing difficulties; and a marked lack of growth and development.

Meet Laila

Physical therapy to address a genetic anomaly

You’d never know, from the way five-and-a-half-year-old Laila giggles and skips and hops her way through physical therapy, that she wasn’t able to sit up until she was 13 months old, the same age at which many children begin walking.

Gross motor delays are a hallmark of hypomyelinating leukoencephalopathy, or the loss of white matter in the brain, a disorder which, in Laila, resulted in profound sensorineural hearing loss; challenges in balance, strength, and coordination; and decreased safety awareness.

Meet Jonah

Occupational therapy to address autism spectrum disorder

At age five, Jonah seemed to be somewhat aware of the world around him but was only distantly engaged. But now, with four months of occupational therapy treatment at Children’s TherAplay, that was changing.

Meet Lauryn

Before Lauryn started treament at Children's TherAplay she was walking but unsteadily. And uneven surfaces, even slight ones like grass, caused her to tumble.

Similarly, getting dressed and undressed required a great deal of assistance. And when it came to her four older siblings, as her mother Jen shares, “She was trying to keep up with them and wasn’t always successful.”

Meet Maxwell

Physical and occupational therapies to address chromosomal anomalies

Maxwell’s mother Jenna shares, "...When we received his diagnosis and knew therapy would be a significant part of his life, I knew where I needed to bring him: Children’s TherAplay. Why? As fate would have it, my career path led me to be an occupational therapist.

"I'll never forget the day in graduate school when we went to a place called Children’s TherAplay to see how they were using horses as a part of the children's treatment. I knew with Maxwell's diagnosis that the benefits of hippotherapy would be immeasurable."

Meet Brayden

Physical and occupational therapies to manage cerebral palsy

“Brayden, like most of the children we serve, has so much fun during treatment in the clinic and on the horse that he doesn’t realize how much work he’s doing. But there’s so much going on,” explains his physical therapist Teresa Keathley. “We’re developing his lower extremity weight-bearing and challenging his balance and coordination so he can walk better. We focus a lot on pelvic stability and core strength to allow Brayden to be more independent.”

Meet Leo

Leo had been receiving traditoinal physical, occupational, and speech therapies but the progress was slow. His mother Laura shares, “He would develop and then he would tend to plateau. And we would hit these stretches that sometimes lasted quite a while where there just wasn’t any progress. Once we got to Children's TherAplay, it was almost a weekly basis where we were seeing things that he was making progress on.”

Meet Emma

Physical and occupational therapies to develop trunk strength and head control

When Emma first began receiving treatment at Children's TherAplay, her movement was evaluated at the neonatal stage. Now, her mother tells us, “When she’s laying on the floor playing, you'll see her pick her shoulders and head up off the floor – she's really trying to sit up!"

Meet Catalina

Physical and occupational therapies to address Down syndrome

“Mama I can jump!” Catalina squealed. It was a big day. Three-and-a-half-year-old Catalina thought she had been jumping before but as her mother Beatriz reports, while Catalina’s upper body bobbed and swayed, her feet had never left the ground.

Lauryn has grown so much. Not only is she getting stronger in her core area and her ability to master more fine motor and gross motor skills, she has also grown in her confidence. She loves coming to Children's TherAplay.

The fact that we travel 45 minutes each way, twice a week says a lot in terms of our feelings about Children's TherAplay. .... It's so worth it. It's wonderful!